Controlling Hue Lights with an Insteon Keypadlinc Controller

I'm about to lean into some configuration and programming to support a bunch of hue ambient downlights. These are installed in ceiling pots where one switch controls power to multiple bulbs. As I wish to control these bulbs individually, I intend to rewire the circuits to deliver continuous power to all the bulbs, then use the 8 buttons of a keypadlinc controller to control the individual lightbulbs.

So here is my *dilema*. I love love love the way they kepadlinc works with other Insteon devices. Once the linking has been completed, all of the expected functions of the keypad's button fall into place. On / Off / Quick On / Quick Off / Dim / Brighten. Beautiful. But it seems that with the Hue lightbulbs, it is necessary to set up individual triggers for every Insteon command that the button might send with the correct corresponding action programmed behind it. Seems like a lot of tedious brute-force coding which I am hoping to avoid. Furthermore, I'm at a loss for how I would handle the dimming and brightening functions.

Anyone have ideas for an elegant way to handle this situation?

So the short answer is No.

If I understand what you are trying to do, you want to be able to use the 8 buttons on your KPL to control 8 Hue Light. In addition to turning on and Off, you'd like to also able to hold the individual keys to slowly brighten (or dim) each of the hue lights individually.

I have a KPL and one of the buttons is linked to a 2nd Insteon dimmer. I can hold that key and the other dimmer brightens (or dims) as expected. (and as a side note, the 2-fast-tap-up-to-full 100% brightness ONLY works on the load that the KPL controls. I can't fast tap key #2 that controls the other Insteon dimmer and have it turn on to 100%)

I have yet another KPL and one of the buttons is linked to a Z-Wave dimmer, and can use this KPL button to tun the other device on to the pre-set brightness level or off, but unlike with my other Insteon-To-Insteon setup, holding that key has no effect on the Z-Wave dimmer, I'm assuming because Indigo can't "harvest" that hold to dim/brighten info to control other devices.

So the only way I can think of to make this work would be pricy, but you could buy an Insteon dimmer for each of your Hue Lights.. These dimmers don't have to control a physical light, they can just be connected to your electric system and to Indigo, but nothing else. Dummy dimmers, for lack of a better term.

From there, you can set up each of your 7 or 8 buttons on your 8button KPL to control each of your dummy dimmers. From there, set up a trigger for each of your dummy dimmers for "Brightness Level" & "Has Any Change", and the action would be "Match Brightness to Device" and use your dummy dimmer for the Device, and then the Hue Light in the Configure Match Brightness to Device" popup. So each of your main 8 button KPL controls a dummy dimmer, each key can be held to slowly brighten or dim your dummy dimmers, and hence your Hue lights.

So Yes, there IS a way to do this, but short of this, I don't see a way for Indigo to transfer the Dim/Brighten commands from an Insteon KPL to Hue(or any other) lights. Doing a simple on/off for each of your KPL's buttons to individual Hue Lights would be super easy, but you won't be able to brighten or dim them in the same way an Insteon-To-Insteon connection does.

There may be smarter folks here who can easily come up with a better plan... but I just can't even think of how that would work.

Maybe substitute the actual Insteon dimmers with Meta virtual dimmers?

Carl

Hey Carl

I actually thought about a virtual device... but again, not sure Indigo "sees" those Hold-To-Dim commands to pass on to other devices. But I could easily be wrong...

Maybe substitute the actual Insteon dimmers with Meta virtual dimmers?

Carl

Tell me more about this virtual dimmer ?

There’s a plugin called Meta Devices. There’re simply virtual devices/dimmers that you can trigger off their states.
I don’t use any Meta dimmer devices but do use a lot of relay type devices which work very well.
Haven’t tried it but maybe the “Match Brightness” command might work for you.

Edit: Got curious to see how it may work but it seems the Meta dimmer device doesn’t respond to commands to set its dimmer level.
Not sure what its purpose is if you can’t set it’s dimmer level.

Carl